Wednesday, December 31, 2014

It's the final hours of 2014, an year that was pretty rich in various happenings. After summing it up, I'm sorry to say that I've lost my faith in many sections of what constitutes the modern "left". Be it "anarchists" which voluntarily joined the openly neo-nazi battalion (now a regiment) "Azov", or the trotskyists which "critically support" ISIS against the Kurds in Syria (if you're interested, there are two lengthy threads about it on Revleft: 1, 2), it doesn't look like something I want to be a part of. There actually are much more examples like that, but these two are just the most illustrative.

I simply don't feel like writing about it any more, because I don't want to start any political discussions right now. All I wanted to say is while I still support the core left-wing values and realise that there were (and still are) some great people on this side of things, now I started to seriously doubt if I really doing something worthwhile by continuing this blog... or not? That's the main reason for my depressive mood during the last few months, as well as for my desire to find people that will continue to run this blog if I decide to abandon it. Now I have some free time until 10th of January, and about a dozen of albums to review, bit I'm not sure if I'll continue posting here after I'm finished with that.

On a bottom note, 2014 might be bad politically, but when it comes to music, it actually wasn't that bad, and I hope 2015 won't be either. Stay tuned!

Hey everyone, it's Preston again. Haven't had time to update as much myself because of school but I'm excited to post a fantastic release that just came out the other day. Many of you are probably already aware of the instrumental black metal band Deafest and the co-contributing band Uaithne (Formerly known as "In the Sea of Trees") who are also instrumental but non-electric in nature. This release plays each artist's songs back to back, offering both project's equal representation of the natural world. It is fantastic in application, powerful, and really nothing short of what you would expect from these musicians.

Hoping to post some more albums in the meantime while I'm on break. If you got anything, send it my way. "p - system @ hotmail 'dot' com"

Monday, December 1, 2014

If you wonder what I'm doing now for this blog: unfortunately not much. I've re-uploaded some albums, but the diskspace on mediafire is much more limited than before, which makes me more cautious with re-uploading. I still haven't found any better alternative yet.

In the meanwhile, here's the last EP from The Hunt, a blackened hardcore band from Australia, which appeared on my blog before with their s/t release. This one is a "posthumous" release, as the band unfortunately broke up in 2012.

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About the blog

First of all: there's probably a lot of broken English on this blog. Hope it isn't that bad, at least I'm trying to do my best. Feel free to point me to any of my mistakes, if there are any. -B.K.

If you're playing in a band and want to see your music featured on our blog - just send a download link of your demo to us:

- oiseau [@] riseup [.] net - for basically anything RABM-related, but she is generally interested in atmospheric, depressive, and post-BM stuff, as well as the projects from Latin America (and Mexico in particular).

- band name, release name/year, country of origin, album cover image (or at least band photo or logo);

- track listing (properly numbered);

- preferably a full release (not samples or streaming) in mp3/m4a/ogg (128kbps or higher bitrate). You may use any free filesharing site (preferably Mediafire) to host your files; or you can use Bandcamp (but then make sure your release is available for free download). *** NO LARGE ATTACHMENTS PLEASE!!! ***;

- any other info about you and your release (links to any sites related to your band, release notes, etc.);

- reason why you want your music to be featured on our blog (note that it's not just another metal blog, and even if your band is apolitical, it still should be somehow in the spirit of RABM movement).

Most of the uploads here are band sanctioned. Anyway, if you for some reason don't want to see your music here, contact us via email (rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com), and we'll consider taking it down.

If you wish to become a contributor for this blog, send a message to rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com. The obvious requirements are: being supportive of the RABM movement, good proficiency in English, and willingness to review lots of albums on a regular basis.

FAQ

Q.: Which kinds of music are featured on this blog?

A.: - (primarily) RABM or Red & Anarchist Black Metal: all kinds of black metal-related music charged with radical leftist (anarchist, libertarian socialist, eco-anarchist, etc.) political views. Some of the bands featured here may be not openly political, but all of them are RABM-friendly;

- blackened crust/hardcore/punk (only if it's openly RABM-friendly, or if it's just very good music; we have no intention to collect here all the blackened punk in existence);

A.: Most bands nowadays have a bandcamp page, where you can but their stuff online (usually for an arbitrary price). It's the most convinient way to support the band. If your favourite band don't have a bandcamp or bigcartel page, try to find out in which distro you can find their albums/merch. Of course, go to concerts if you have such opportunity.

Q.: How can I offer my financial support to this blog, or the RABM movement in general?

A.: Unfortunately right we don't have an opportunity to accept donations, but we hope we'll be able to set it up soon.

Q.: What is the connection between black metal and hardcore/punk/crust?

A.: It's a well-established fact that the connection between black metal and punk scenes existed since the early days of BM (think Venom, early Bathory, early Mayhem and early Sodom on one side, and Amebix, Discharge and Axegrinder on another). Recently this mix of BM and hardcore punk got a new life in the form of blackened crust (thanks to Black Kronstadt / Iskra in first place). And don't forget about Cascadian black metal bands with their radical environmentalist ideology, often to the extent of radical eco-anarchism or "pro-nature/anti-humanity" ideas.

Q.: What's your main ideology?

A.: This blog is generally written from a position of anarchism without adjectives; however, the RABM scene is very diverse ideologically. Let us end on this, as this blog isn't quite a right place for purely political debates; if you want to learn or argue about anarchism/other ideologies, there's a lot of specialized FAQs/blogs/forums for you.

Q.: Isn't black metal supposed to be apolitical?

A.: Supposed by whom? I personally don't think so, but if you think that political awareness should have no place in "true" black metal, you can feel free to call the bands featured on here "blackened punk" or whatever you want. It should be noted, though, that a lot of these bands doesn't openly talk about politics in their lyrics, exactly because they think it wouldn't be suitable for black metal. - B.K.

Q.: Isn't RABM just an "answer" to NSBM?

A.: While RABM is definitely against NSBM and any other kind of far-right crap in metal scene, it's most emphatically a self-sufficient movement and not any kind of "answer to NSBM". Similarly, while RABM is 100% pro liberation from any kinds of religious tyranny, it isn't a movement against any particular religion (Christianity, Islam, or any other).

Q.: What's your opinion on Satanism?

A.: The so-called "Hollywood Satanism", which is often found in black metal, is, in our opinion, nothing more than inverted Christianity, so we aren't big on it. Many of us are simply atheists, pagans of all kinds, gnostics, etc. We also don't share the notion that only genuine theistic Satanists / Devil-worshippers can play "real" black metal (this would exclude such bands as Venom, Bathory, Immortal, Summoning, and many many others). Additionally, the very term "Satanism" is quite vague, and can't be narrowed down to LaVeyan Satanism (which is heavily disliked by many black metallers), or whatever else. LaVey had some good points, but in general his philosophy can be described just as "Ayn Rand with some occult tinge".

Q.: What about misanthropy and nihilism?

A.: To put it in short: we don't hate everyone and everything (and we don't think there's anyone﻿ who truly does). We just hate these traits of humanity which make true anarchist society most likely infeasible in the foreseeable future.

Q.: Collectivism or individualism?

A.: There actually is no "hard" contradiction between these two terms. Individualism is simply an outlook emphasizes the moral worth of the individual and its right not to be oppressed by the state or some social group. It doesn't contradict at all with standing up for your rights along with a group of like-minded individuals. It also worth noting that the early black metal scene didn't promote individualism that much (see "black metal circles").

Q.: Who coined the term "RABM"?

A.: Hard to say, but there's an apparent similarity to RASH ("Red & Anarchist Skinheads"). Here's the very first mention of "RABM" we could find (August 2005). The term was popularized by our last.fm group (and later - by this blog) since 2009.

Q.: Do you know the ideology of the band X? It isn't obvious if they're NSBM or not...

A.: Sorry, we don't know, do your own research. It's often hard to say anything certain about a band's views, if the members themselves aren't open about it. We also don't advice using various "lists of nazi bands" etc. as a reference, as most of them are full of bullshit. Similarly, forum posts or blog comments (especially anonymous ones) generally aren't a reliable source for anything. In one particular case, we had an anonymous comment claiming that the members of Timebomb are now playing in a fascist band called SPQR. Later it turned out that it were members of a completely other Italian band with a similar name (Timebombs). Hopefully that'd be a good example of how important fact-checking is.

Q.: I've seen some of the albums posted here in the same distro with some albums by right-leaning bands...

A.: Unfortunately it's often the case with distros and labels that distribute stuff regardless of its political affiliation. Even Austin Lunn of Panopticon complained about Pagan Flames (the label which released his "Collapse" and "Social Disservices" LPs) having NSBM in their distro, so things like these are just unavoidable.

Q.: Some bands on this blog have Burzum on their list on influences. Isn't Varg Vikernes a nazi?